IMPERIAL CHAMBER (Reichskammergericht), the su preme judicial court of the Holy Roman empire, during the period between and the dissolution of the empire in i8o6. From the early middle ages there had been a supreme court of justice for the empire—the Hofgericht, in which the emperor himself presided and a body of assessors found the judgments. The Hofgericht was connected with the person of the emperor; it ceased to act when he was abroad ; it died with his death. Upon him it depended for its efficiency ; and when, in the a 5th century, the emperor ceased to command respect, his court lost the confi dence of his subjects, and after 145o it ceased to sit. Its place was taken by the Kammergericht, which appeared side by side with the Hofgericht from 1415, and after 145o replaced it alto gether. The king (or his deputy) still presided in the Kammer gericht and it was still his personal court ; but the members of the new "chamber" were all officials—the consiliarii of the impe rial aula or Kammer, whence the name of the court). It was generally the legal members of the council who sat in the Kammergericht (see under AuLIC COUNCIL) ; and as they were generally doctors of civil law, the court which they composed tended to act according to that law, and thus contributed to the "reception" of Roman law into Germany towards the end of the 15th century. Even the Kammergericht, however, fell into disuse in the later years of the reign of Frederick III.; and the creation of a new and efficient court became a matter of pressing necessity, and was one of the most urgent of the reforms which were mooted in the reign of Maximilian I.
This new court was eventually created in 1495 ; and it bore the name of Reichskammergericht, or Imperial Chamber. It was dis tinguished from the old Kammergericht by the essential fact that it was not the personal court of the emperor, but the official court of the empire (or Reich—whence its name). The emperor appointed the president; the empire nominated the rest of the judges. There were originally 16 judges (afterwards, as a rule, 18) : half of these were to be doctors of Roman law, and half were to be knights; but after 1555 it became necessary that the latter should be learned in Roman law, even if they had not actually taken their doctorate.
Thus the empire at last was possessed of a court, a court resting on the enactment of the diet, and not on the emperor's will; a court paid by the empire, and not by the emperor; a court resident in a fixed place (until 1693, Spires, and afterwards, from 1693 to 1806, Wetzlar), and not attached to the emperor's person. The great result which in the issue it served to achieve was the final "reception" of Roman law as the common law of Germany, That the Imperial Chamber should itself administer Roman law was an inevitable result of its composition; and it was equally inevitable that the composition and procedure of the supreme imperial court should be imitated in the various States which composed the empire, and that Roman law should thus become the local, as it was already the central, law of the land.
The province of the Imperial Chamber, as it came to be gradu ally defined by statute and use, extended to breaches of the pub lic peace, cases of arbitrary distraint or imprisonment, pleas which concerned the treasury, violations of the emperor's decrees or of laws passed by the diet, and a variety of other matters. It had also cognizance in cases of refusal to do justice, and it acted as a court of appeal from territorial courts in civil and, to a small extent, in criminal cases; but it had no authority in terri tories which enjoyed a privilegium de non appellando (such as, e.g., the territories of the electors). The business of the court was, however, badly done. Delay was interminable, thanks, in large measure, to want of funds, which prevented the mainte nance of a proper number of judges. In all its business it suffered from the competition of the Aulic Council; for that body, having lost all executive competence after the i6th century, had also devoted itself to judicial work. Composed of the personal advisers of the emperor, the Aulic Council did justice on his behalf (the erection of a court to do justice for the empire having left the emperor still possessed of the right to do justice for him self through his consiliarii) ; and it may thus be said to be the descendant of the old Kammergericht. The competition between the Aulic Council and the Imperial Chamber was finally regu lated by the treaty of Westphalia, which laid it down that the court which first dealt with a case should alone have competence to pursue it.
See J. N. Harpprecht, Staatsarchiv des Reichskammergerichts ; G. Stobbe, Reichshofgericht and Reichskammergericht (Leipzig, 1878) ; R. Schroder, Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsge schichte (Leipzig, 1904)• (E. B.)